‘Swimming in gravity’

Dancer, choreographer and international pedagogue, Steve Paxton has certainly made his mark on the history of dance. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater and the Grand Union in New York, in 1972 he was at the origin of Contact Improvisation – a practice of improvised dance which is known throughout the world today – and as of 1986 he developed the Material for the Spine technique. For more than 55 years, his plays, which have been performed throughout the world, and his teachings question the reality of the body and the culture it is part of.

Steve Paxton’s conference at BOZAR celebrates the recent publication with Éditions Contredanse of his first book Gravity and its French translation La gravité. In it, he looks back on a life inhabited by this natural physical force, and the memories of his first steps run alongside metaphysical meditations and views on the present-day world. With lucidity and humour, Steve Paxton investigates what is at the bounds of our conscience, and invites our senses to enter into the dance.